Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 6 1888.djvu/282

274 after me and said, 'Your 'onor, come back and look at my fish.' I went back, and it was only an 'alibut, and I said, I don't want your beastly 'alibut,' but she said, 'Hoh, your 'onor, you must buy some, as all the 'ebrew gentlemen 'ave been in with me to-day.' The 'orrid hold woman 'ad taken me for a Jew." G. H. K.

Devil's Glen, co. Wicklow.—The Devil's Glen is so called as it was one of the Irish residences of his satanic majesty, and those seeking an audience were required to apply at Pouldoule, or the deep hole below the waterfall, where he was to be heard of.

It is said that Murdock 'Toole, the rapparee of Lough Dan, when he wanted a banshee, came in at the upper end of the glen to see the devil. When the Byrnes, Cavanaghs, and other chiefs met to defend the country against Cromwell's invasion, the rapparee was also there. Cavanagh objected to a churl sitting in council with them, and O'Toole claimed he was a bastard son of O'Connor, and that a royal bastard had a right to sit in council with the noble but uncrowned blood of the Leinster chiefs; also he stated that he would forfeit to the Cavanaghs all his property if he failed to have a banshee appear at his death. In various ways he tried to induce the O'Connor banshee to act for him, but all his devices failed; so as a last resource he visited the devil at Pouldoule. The devil was kind, and promised one on the condition that he destroyed the ecclesiastical settlement at Glendalough of St. Kevin. This he did, and since then a devil as a banshee attends at the death of this family of O'Tooles. But, unfortunately, devils cannot weep at the death of a mortal, they can only laugh; so that the O'Tooles' banshee announces their deaths with peals of most unearthly laughter. It is said, however, that these O'Tooles increased so fast and scattered so over the world, while the devil had so much business on hand, that of late years he rose out of his contract, and that now-a-day one of these O'Tooles can go quietly to his rest. As to the Devil's Glen—since the English overran the country, his majesty has so many habitations that he finds it rarely necessary to visit the glen. G. H. K.